Observing methane flux distributions using high resolution air-borne mapping
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The document discusses recent findings on atmospheric methane emissions from a gas well in the Four Corners region, highlighting the significant impact of methane on climate as a potent greenhouse gas. It presents data from airborne remote sensing campaigns that detect methane plumes and quantify flux distributions, revealing a log-normal pattern in emission rates. Key contributors to methane emissions include natural gas production and coalbed methane sources, with estimates indicating that certain wells release substantial amounts of methane into the atmosphere.
Observing methane flux distributions using high resolution air-borne mapping
- 1. Atmospheric Methane From a gas well to a hemisphere Christian Frankenberg and many others
- 2. Recent changes in atmospheric methane
- 3. Recent papers on methane rise (just a few of them)
- 4. From the hemisphere to individual methane plumes (back later) 4 Corners airborne campaign Airborne methane remote measurements reveal heavy- tail flux distribution in Four Corners region Christian Frankenberga,b,1 , Andrew K. Thorpeb , David R. Thompsonb , Glynn Hulleyb , Eric Adam Kortc , Nick Vanceb , Jakob Borchardtd , Thomas Kringsd , Konstantin Gerilowskid , Colm Sweeneye,f , Stephen Conleyg,h , Brian D. Bueb , Andrew D. Aubreyb , Simon Hookb , and Robert O. Greenb a Division of Geology and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125; b Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109; c Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; d Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen, 28334 Bremen, Germany; e Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309; f Global Monitoring Division, Earth System Research Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, CO 80305; g Scientific Aviation, Boulder, CO 80301; and h Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 Edited by Gregory P. Asner, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA, and approved June 17, 2016 (received for review April 10, 2016) Methane (CH4) impacts climate as the second strongest anthropo- for underestimated methane emissions in bottom-up inventories
- 5. How it all got started SCIAMACHY Methane Anomalies Kort, Frankenberg et al, GRL, 2014
- 6. How it all got started SCIAMACHY Methane Anomalies Kort, Frankenberg et al, GRL, 2014 —> Estimated to be about 0.5Tg/yr, almost 10% of US total Oil&Gas d" SCIAMACHY"xCH4"enhancements" Scaled"Model""xCH4"enhancements"
- 7. Potential Sources of CH4 in Four Corners Region • Total Production rate in San Juan Basin about 1000 billion cubic feet (20Tg/yr) • 0.5Tg/yr would be about 2.5% • Largest Coalbed methane production area in US
- 8. Methane Airborne Remote Sensing AVIRIS-NG (5nm sampling, 400-2500nm)
- 10. Airborne operations AVIRIS-NG real time methane detection (Thompson et al, AMT) Real-Time CH4 display
- 11. Native resolution examples (background is 2.3µm radiance in gray, meter axis)
- 12. Up-scaling to fluxes (integrate methane amount in plume) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 IME (kg CH4) 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 Fluxestimate(kgCH4/hr) r2 = 0.97 r2 = 0.96 Gaussian Integral Flux Inversion In-situ airborne Flux Inversion
- 14. 102 103 104 105 106 Flux rates (scfh) 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Frequency 1 10 100 1000 10000 Flux rates (kg/hr) Plume distribution — Log-normal Detectionthreshold Porter Ranch 60,000kg/hr
- 15. 102 103 104 105 106 Flux rates (scfh) 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Frequency 1 10 100 1000 10000 Flux rates (kg/hr) Plume distribution — Wellhead
- 16. 102 103 104 105 106 Flux rates (scfh) 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Frequency 1 10 100 1000 10000 Flux rates (kg/hr) Plume distribution — ???
- 17. Methane plume
- 18. 102 103 104 105 106 Flux rates (scfh) 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Frequency 1 10 100 1000 10000 Flux rates (kg/hr) Plume distribution
- 19. 102 103 104 105 106 Flux rates (scfh) 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Frequency 1 10 100 1000 10000 Flux rates (kg/hr) Plume distribution — underground storage tank
- 20. Methane plume from tank
- 21. 102 103 104 105 106 Flux rates (scfh) 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Frequency 1 10 100 1000 10000 Flux rates (kg/hr) Plume distribution - Wellhead
- 22. 102 103 104 105 106 Flux rates (scfh) 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Frequency 1 10 100 1000 10000 Flux rates (kg/hr) Plume distribution — Guesses welcome
- 23. 102 103 104 105 106 Flux rates (scfh) 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Frequency 1 10 100 1000 10000 Flux rates (kg/hr) Plume distribution — Unclear (multiple sources, maybe well completion? Near coal-mine
- 24. What does the log-normal distribution imply? 0 20 40 60 80 100 Percentile (%) of sources (large to small) 0 20 40 60 80 100 totalfluxpercentage Measured plumes 95% confidence interval 101 102 103 104 Fluxrate(kg/hr) Flux distribution; P =0.30 Tg/yr (95% confidence=0.23–0.39) measured flux rates